“Er, sorry, Mr Edward, I 'ad a few glass plates left and the demons weren't tired and—”

“Next slide, please. And then you may leave us.”

“Yes, Mr Edward.”

“Report to the d-uty torturer.”

“Yes, Mr Edward.”

Click!

“And this is a rather good—well done, Bl-enkin—image of the bust of Queen Coanna.”

“Thank you, Mr Edward.”

“More of her face would have enabled us to be certain of the likeness, however. There is sufficient, I believe. You may go, Bl-enkin.”

“Yes, Mr Edward.”

“A little something off the ears, I th-ink.”

“Yes, Mr Edward.”

The servant respectfully shut the door behind him, and then went down to the kitchen shaking his head sadly. The d'Eaths hadn't been able to afford a family torturer for years. For the boy's sake he'd just have to do the best he could with a kitchen knife.

The visitors waited for the host to speak, but he didn't seem about to do so, although it was sometimes hard to tell with Edward. When he was excited, he suffered not so much from a speech impediment as from misplaced pauses, as if his brain were temporarily putting his mouth on hold.

Eventually, one of the audience said: “Very well. So what is your point?”

“You've seen the likeness. Isn't it ob-vious?”

“Oh, come now—”

Edward d'Eath pulled a leather case towards him and began undoing the thongs.

“But, but the boy was adopted by Discworld dwarfs. They found him as a baby in the forests of the Ramtop mountains. There were some b-urning wagons, corpses, that sort of thing. B-andit attack, apparently. The dwarfs found a sword in the wreckage. He has it now. A very old sword. And it's always sharp.”

“So? The world is full of old swords. And grindstones.”